Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

73 results found

Guthrie, Woody

(Encyclopedia)Guthrie, Woody (Woodrow Wilson Guthrie), 1912–67, American folk singer, guitarist, and composer, b. Okemah, Okla. Guthrie was an itinerant musician and laborer from the age of 13. Deeply involved in...

Jefferson, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Jefferson, Joseph, 1829–1905, American actor. He was the foremost of an old and distinguished family of English and American actors. Jefferson began his stage career as a child actor, and when the f...

Johnson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Robert, 1911–38, African-American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, b. Hazelhurst, Miss. A sharecropper's son, he grew up absorbing the music of Delta bluesmen, learning the harmonic...

Kemp, Jack French

(Encyclopedia)Kemp, Jack French, 1935–2009, American politician and government official, b. Los Angeles. He played football while at Occidental College (grad. 1957) and was a professional quarterback for 13 seaso...

Leonard, Elmore

(Encyclopedia)Leonard, Elmore (John Elmore Leonard), 1925–2013, American novelist, b. New Orleans, grad. Univ. of Detroit (1950). “Dutch” Leonard began publishing Western tales in the early 1950s, the best kn...

La Follette, Robert Marion

(Encyclopedia)La Follette, Robert Marion ləfŏlˈĭt [key], 1855–1925, American political leader, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (1906–25), b. Primrose, Wis. Robert La Follete's wife, Belle Case La Follette, 18...

Hammond, John Henry

(Encyclopedia)Hammond, John Henry, 1910–87, American record producer; blues, jazz, and rock promoter; and music critic, b. New York City. A member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family, he entered the music business i...

Grateful Dead, The

(Encyclopedia)Grateful Dead, The, American rock music group formed in 1965 by guitarists Jerry Garcia, 1942–95, and Bob Weir, 1947–, harmonica player Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, 1945–73, bassist Phil Lesh, 194...

Glaser, Milton

(Encyclopedia)Glaser, Milton, 1929–2020, widely considered America's preeminent graphic designer of the last half of the 20th cent., b. New York City. After graduating (1951) from New York's Cooper Union Art Scho...

Browse by Subject